


Gideon's Bible

by EmilliaGryphon



Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Friendship, Friendship/Love, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Platonic Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-17
Updated: 2017-07-17
Packaged: 2018-11-01 16:40:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 12
Words: 14,423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10925823
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EmilliaGryphon/pseuds/EmilliaGryphon
Summary: Rocket waits for Groot to (hopefully) awaken. He fights, drinks commits crimes and tries to forget himself. But that is very hard to do when memories of the past keep haunting him. It is not until Baby Groot starts to ask questions about his own past, however, that Rocket realizes he must seek out Gideon's Bible. For his sake, and for Groot.Warning: major spoilers for both Guardian's movies and the Rocket Racoon Comics--I do not own Rocket, Groot, any of these characters/places or the Rocky Raccoon song.--





	1. Track One: A Little Light

Rocket’s life was defined by light. First, it was the many rays of light from the suns circling around Planet X. Then it was the florescent light of the strange cage, he tried to forget the lightening streaks of white, zapping as they pierced through him but of course he could not. Then there was the light that nearly blinded him as he sat in the cage, alone and scared and shaking. There have been the lights of the strange people in the coats as their masks reflected. There were the lights that hung above the table where they strapped him and the lights of the ship he had first stolen. There were the lights of the stars, cool and calming and far away. Most of all, there was the tiny flickering yellow light’s that Groot manifested. Rocket liked these the best. Even better than the orange hot lights of a gun firing rounds, better than the explosive lights of bombs. But these lights, the one’s that Groot now shown all around them, these lights would not define Rocket’s life. They would end it. Or so he hoped. Better him then Groot. He was numbly aware of them while he lay in Peter’s arms. The dizzying sensation of his head still perplexed him. But he knew these lights, dancing like stars around them. He knew the vines and branches that emanated from his best friend, creating a protective shell as the Dark Aster continued to plummet towards Xandar. 

Must…get to…Groot…have to…stop him…Rocket unfolded himself from Peter and the thief let him go without protest. Glancing at Gamora who did nothing but stare at the lights in peaceful wonder. Rocket could not help but watch the faces of his fellows as he made his way to Groot. Peter now joined the green assassin in anxious anticipation. The two of them silent and waiting. Staring all around at the cocoon light structure that held them. Drax already lay resigned as Groot wrapped his branches tighter around him. Pulling him into an embrace Rocket knew all too well. Here, amid the ruin, Groot held them all. A private haven, a sanctuary. 

“No Groot,” he choked, looking up into those warm brown eyes. Those eyes. As the Dark Aster spun, time froze. Those eyes. Rocket remembered the first time he saw them. The small lights that drifted suspended in the air illuminated them. The tiny lights were private. Groot had never shown them before they met up with this strange motley crew. The first-time Groot had shown him those lights, Rocket was dying.

“Stop it!” He clawed and thrashed at the strange creatures in the coats with their masks that hid their faces. “Stop!” He kicked against the hard metal holding down his limbs, I’m stronger than this. I gotta be…they came with the knives and loomed over him. “Don’t!” He gasped, his fur on edge. He knew the pain that would come, his body knew it. It screamed at him. Danger. Get out. Fight, run, kill. Rocket arched against the restraints terror gnawing at him as the knives were brought down. The needles came closer. Omens. “Don’t take me apart again!” Pain led to anger, anger led to fury, fury led to fear, fear led to pleading. He knew the cycle well. “Don’t take me apart again!” He writhed, bones stinging. “DON’T” He saw the needle come, but…there was no pain. Gently he felt something around him. Not restraints…something earthy and creaking. 

“I am Groot,” it said. Rocket blinked, above him he could see the outline of the flora colossus. The penetrating lights over the table slowly ebbed. Replaced by the darkness of night. He sniffed, fresh air. The forest...? “I am Groot.” Rocket slowly opened his eyes fully. Groot held him in his vines. Inside his chest Rocket felt his heart pounding. His whole body shook. 

“It…it was…it was just a…d…dream.” He reassured himself. 

“I am Groot.” Rocket tried to concentrate but the voices of the strange creatures in the strange coats whispered in his mind. 

“Just you wait you bastards!” He raged, “I’m getting out of here!” He tried to run, but Groot’s arms held him. Pulled him gently against the wooden chest. 

“I am Groot, I am Groot,” the tree whispered. Rocket watched one of his friend’s hands as it flicked and a small yellow orb grew from the tips of his finger. He watched it detach and float. Then another, and another. Until they were all around. Like stars, Rocket watched them hanging there and felt the shallow steady rumble of his friend breathe. The voices in his head ceased. There were no more restraints, only comfort. No more needles, only a calm embrace. The lights slowly moved about him as he curled against Groot. He watched them so carefree and pure. It slowed his heart and lit his eyes. 

“You are Groot,” his friend whispered, reaching up one vine to brush the wetness from Rocket’s eyes. 

Now those lights were here again. But they were not comforting, or at least they weren’t comforting Rocket. 

“You can’t! You’ll die!” Rocket beseeched through clenched teeth. While the Dark Aster crumpled and fell the world that was him and Groot stood still. He didn’t understand. But Groot’s smile only wedged the cracks in Rocket’s heart and he stared up at him silently pleading. Another vine reached up slowly, wiping away a tear. It was only gentle touch he had known. 

“Why are you doing this…why?!” With an unfathomable serenity Groot looked at him, an inner peace Rocket had never known. He longed for it thought it was foreign. 

“We…are…Groot…” The last thing Rocket saw was the face of his friend, the last thing he heard was the screech of metal impacting and the snapping, cracking of branches. The wrenching of bark and tear of a leaf. The last thing Rocket could feel was the light of Groot’s love. For him. For all of them, and the white light consuming it all.


	2. Track Two: Idiot

“I called him an idiot,” the words are splintered like the remains of his friend. All is dust and he hears the distant groan of his companions. All those times Groot had been slow, lumbering, had disagreed with him or asked him. Rocket’s response was the same. Idiot. When Groot insisted that they return the daughter of a wealthy merchant to her parents instead of turning her in to slavers who had offered more for her, Rocket called him and idiot. When Groot objected to certain…means of interrogations…Rocket called him and idiot. Stupid things like when he had scolded Groot for drinking out of a public fountain when they were supposed to be getting the bounty on Star-Lord’s head. Idiot. But Rocket knew the truth, as he clutched the small twigs to his chest. He was the idiot. He had crashed the ship into the Dark Aster. He had caused the giant ship to plummet. He had killed Groot. No. No, the pain was coming back. He couldn’t think of that. Idiot chose to get himself killed…but try as he might he could think of no other way around it. Besides anger. 

A crunching sound, Rocket turned, stomach falling into his tail. Quelling with rage. Ronan. Yes, this was Ronan’s fault. He emerged from the billowing smoke with indignation and amusement. The rage that Rocket knew so well swelled, a darkness to rival Groot’s light, consuming him. 

“You…killed Groot….” He snarled, ears flicking back against his head. From the corner of his eye he could see Peter struggling to rise. But that wouldn’t stop him. Nothing could. Self-hatred and emptiness propelled him forward until a stabbing shock hit against his chest in a deep amethyst light and he was flying. “I’m sorry buddy,” he thought. “I tried to kill the fucking bastard…” when he hit the metal shrapnel of the ship and collapsed he wondered if he would see Groot. Wondered if he could ask for…forgiveness? Something he had never given himself. 

The next thing Rocket was aware of was screaming. A cloud of purple and black. Quill, Gamora…Drax? He could hear them, hear the roar of thunder. 

“W…what is that?” He whispered, on all fours he made his way toward it, then stood, bracing himself against the wind. The strange energy that swirled all around, the likes of which he hadn’t felt since…well…since Half-world. He groped blindly through it, until he felt Drax’s shaking fist. His small paw closed around and…all of creation seemed to force it’s way inside his small body. He threw his head back, jaws open in shock. 

“Damnit! I’m going to fucking die….I can’t…t..take this!” his mind howled, chest heaving up and down, even the expanding bars they had inserted in his sternum and spine did not allow enough expansion to accommodate all of this pain. It vibrated through him like a furious current of water. Like fire filling every vein and capillary. Rocket clutched tighter, Peter Quill’s voice but an echo in his ears. He screamed, all hairs on end. He held and held until he could hold no more pain inside of him, as though he would burst. It was worse, this feeling. Worse than the pain those loonies on Planet X would inflict on him when he didn’t watch his back during his rounds of guarding them. Worse than the countless bullet wounds he had suffered. He was filled with rage and agony and would explode with it until…until it stopped. Slowly the fire in his limbs dissipated and he breathed in relief. The black cloud surrounding them drew away, leaving the broken remnants of Groot before them once more. 

Rocket sank to his knees, not even the power of the infinity stone was enough to bring Groot back. The tears came hot and fast, released by the gaping hole the pain of the stone had caused in his heart. Enough to burn through layers and layers of practiced jaded defenses. Trembling he took the sticks in his hands. He brought them close to him, as if he could will his best friend back. Nothing. Beside him the crunch of sticks as Drax settled down beside him caused the creature to flinch. He sniffed, looking away. Trying to hold it in. But it was useless. In a rain of emotion Rocket let out a stifled sob flinching as something warm and dry caressed his fur gingerly. Drax…he knew…he knew what loss was. He’d lost his wife. His child. Rocket knew neither of those things, but he clearly loved them as much as he loved Groot. 

“I am sorry.” Drax stated after some time. “About what I said, you are not some vermin. I do not know what you are. But it is not vermin. I was wrong.” Rocket said nothing. He twisted his paws around the sticks that he held and allowed Drax to continue his apologetic patting.


	3. Track Three: What's In a Name Part One

“I am Groot,”

“Yeah I heard yah’ the first thousand times yah’ said it yah’ idiot!” Rocket growled. 

“I am Groot,” the strange bumbling creature would say, over and over to itself. But now, in silence Rocket waited, waited for anything. Movement, a twitch, anything. He waited, rarely sleeping. Anyone of the guardians could attest that the pyro raccoon like creature watered the small pot every day. He sat in his bunk, in the pilot seat, anywhere watching and waiting for the slightest movement. They left Xandar days ago, wandering through the galaxy but Rocket had no sense of where they were going. He didn’t care. As he walked around the Milano even the slightest shadow of movement again the tiny twig sent his heart skipping. But then he would run over to inspect the pot, to hope and time after time he was only met with silence. The rest of the crew kept their distance from him, he was glad. Peter tried to offer sympathies, a sad smile here or there. He even asked what planet Rocket would like to go to next, what sort of mission. But these things didn’t phase Rocket. He cared about one thing and one thing only: the possibility that the immobile, mute little stick would one day open it’s eyes and say those three little words. 

“I am Groot.” The words has echoed through the cell walls. Rocket had many memories of Halfworld, all of which he’d rather not dwell one-except after a bender when the memories and the pain would come floating up from the depths of him, lured by the sweet, warm, fuzziness of liquor. The only memory he did want to remember was that of meeting Groot. He didn’t see him at first, only heard him, only heard I am Groot. Over and over until he scratched at the bars of his cage madly, 

“I aamm Grooot,” the creature moaned. Rocket snarled, scraping against the metal of his prison to no effect. 

“Shut your mouth! Can’t you say anything else you dumb tree?!” After that, his neighbor fell into a blessed silence. Though Rocket had little time to cherish it. The people in the strange coats came to get him. At least four times a day they would break into his cell and subdue him by any means necessary. Every time he clawed and fought, and every time he lost.   
They’d strap him down to the table and do things to him, with their scalpels and their needles and their strange vials with strange liquids that did even stranger things to him. Only when he had ceased fighting, for fear of death or worse, only when he gave in and let them torture him did he wait for it to end. And it always ended, ended only so that it could begin again the next session. 

“I am Groot,” the creature wailed. Rocket, curled in his cell nursing the worst headache his skull had ever experienced, curled his claws into fists. 

“Cut it out! No one cares!” He hissed. The unseen creature only repeated himself. Rising the blood in Rocket’s veins. 

“I am Groot.” 

“Aaaahhh!!!” Rocket screamed aggravated, running at the right side of his cell and slamming against it. He only succeeded in bruising himself. The next day it happened again. They came for him and experimented on him. 

“This is a new formula,” he could hear them say through their masks. “Let’s hope it doesn’t kill him.”

Let’s hope it does, Rocket thought dully. He bared his teeth as the strange coated creature came near, holding the large, thick needle full of odd green liquid. But he already knew it was hopeless even when he tugged on his restraints. In a flash of agony, he felt the piercing of skin at his temple, the pressure of it going through bone and the oddest feeling of it penetrating deeper, into his scull…it was sharper than anything he’d felt. He told himself to breathe, just breathe for all long as he could…but he couldn’t anymore. Not after all they had done. His body was broken, his mind scrambled and shriveled. But he couldn’t let them know that. That would be giving them too much credit. So Rocket snarled and scraped until he felt the liquid swimming through him and his eyes closed in desperation. 

“I am Groot…”

“W…what?” Rocket opened his eyes dully, his head swimming and every joint aching. 

“I am Groot.” He staggered, trembling to his feet. 

“No…I’m not okay!” He snapped then stopped. Looking at the wall. “What did you say?”

“I am Groot.” Rocket heard the same words yes…but now…he…understood them. 

“I don’t know what they did to me!” He said coming closer to the wall and pressing his hear against it. 

“I am Groot….” The strange thing next to him said sadly. 

“Sorry?! What do you have to be sorry for? You didn’t do nothing! You wasn’t the one who did this.” 

“I am Groot…” Rocket slid down the wall, crumpling into a ball, pressing himself as near to the slick clod rock as he could. 

“Yeah…me too.” 

Rocket tilted the water can even more, trying to get it exactly right. He couldn’t over water the plant. Nor underwater it. He sighed, tears pricking his red eyes. He glanced around the common area, making sure no one was there. Then he leaned closer to the little plant. 

“It was worth it yah know?” He leaned back on his knees. “What they did to me….it was worth it. Yah know why?” The stick did not answer. “…Cuz it got me to hear you. Understand you. What you were really sayin’.” Rocket sighed, his voice cracking. “They did a lot of fucked up stuff to both of us. But…at least I got you out of it. That makes it worth it.” He let the tears fall, and pulled the small pot into his arms, hugging it closer to him, curling his tail around it. 

“You are Groot,” he whispered. Still nothing.


	4. Track Four: Liquid Dread

Most of the time, Rocket says (or rather translates) that which Groot cannot say. But sometimes, three times exactly to be precise. Groot says the things that Rocket cannot say. The first time was when Rocket had accidentally killed an inmate on Halfworld where he was forced to patrol loonies even crazier then himself. He hadn’t meant to do it, but the stray bullet had hit her nonetheless. He’d been aiming for the other crazy who was beating on her. Well, he’d killed him later out of rage and spite but when he had knelt over her…Groot had been the one to speak. The second time was on Nowhere. When he Drax and Groot had been drinking and he in his drunken stooper had asked about the scars adorning the alien’s body. He knew that Thanos had killed his wife and daughter but the marks were fascinating. Rocket knew enough about scars to know that they told a lot about a person. 

“What’s this crap?” 

“Unhand me,” Drax yanked away. To his surprise, Drax answered a moment later.

“This is the story of my life,” he murmured, “This here, my soul union with Oved,” he said pointing to the marks on his forearm. He went on describing each scar in detail. “The day Kamarea was born.”

“I am Groot,” 

“Groot!” Rocket scolded,

“What he’s trying to say, in a rather insensitive fashion, is didn’t you weep when your wife and daughter were murdered?” Drax’s eyes went hard but the alcohol coursing through Rocket’s veins made him even bolder than usual. 

“You shall not speak of them,” Drax growled, dropping the glass of blue liquid. “Vermin!” Rocket bristled, the drinks that normally numbed him turned to rage. 

“I’ll speak of whatever I want to speak of!”

“You know nothing of family tragedy!” Drax snarled, rising to his feet. Tragedy. Rocket knew all about that. Knew more then he liked to remember, and the liquor helped him not to remember. There had only been a handful of times when Groot had to take him to the nearest medical center for alcohol poisoning. Rocked HATED medical centers, so between loathing and loneliness he walked the tedious line, or rather, drank it. The third-time Groot had said something he could not say had been before Yondu died. When the ravager was making ready to sacrifice himself. Yondu, who had been the only person except perhaps to a certain extent, Groot, who was able to see right through him. He had gotten incredibly intoxicated after that. Groot didn’t like it when Rocket drank, and boy did Rocket know it. But it was better than the alternative. Rocket used booze as a buffer, between him and his nightmares, him and his memories, between his hurt and between others who would dare come too close. The unpredictability of emotions was something he could handle, it was fun actually. A spinning top of how the night of binge drinking would go. He could be ecstatic, brawling and cracking jokes that was when the buffer was good. But sometimes if he drank too much, which he usually did…that barrier would break and he would fly into an unholy rage against anything, (except Groot,) that moved. He was angry at them, angry at everyone for having someone like themselves, for knowing who, or at least what they were. He was angry at those strange people who created him, for torturing him. In bar rooms and back allies and beer-halls he replicated his rage. Fighting, scratching, biting, shooting. Recreating the fights, he would have with those doctors and scientists as he was dragged down the hallways, only this time he won. Sure, he and Groot would get thrown out or beat up but he would beat harder. The only thing he hated worse than those who experimented on him was himself for letting them do so. 

Sometimes the liquor would make him sad and he had no fight within him. He’d leave wherever he’d been drinking in a funk hanging his head until he reached some quiet place and only where no one could see him would the alcohol pour out of his eyes in tears. He dreaded himself and his past and so he drank. Then sometimes, in the morning when he’d wake up in the warmth of Groot’s wooden chest, he’d regret drinking. The sentient tree would pet him gently until he fully woke and he’d see Groot’s large sad eyes. Then the dread of what he had done would hit him. But it never lasted long. Rocket drank too much but he convinced himself that it was healthier, better than remembering, then losing his mind more than he already had. 

The intoxication sang to his demons, the intoxication kept them at bay. Tonight it was doing neither of these things. Tonight it only made images of Groot flash before his clouded eyes. They had stopped after delivering a bounty and Rocket had spent all of his share on booze. He took it to his hold and drank it all whilst watching the stick in its pot. It was only a matter of time until his body could take no more of the stuff and he was forced to crawl to the bathroom.   
Out of everything they did to me, they couldn’t have given me a stronger stomach? Or liver for that matter? His thoughts blotted in and out as he gripped the sides of the Milano’s hallways, finding his way step by step back to his quarters. Coming into his room he glanced at the stick again and sighed crawling into his bed. “I’m going to hungover tomorrow Groot, I’ll tell yah that much.” He rolled over, clutching his stomach and closed his eyes. 

A sound. A shuffle, small cracks. Rocket’s eyes opened just barely. 

Creek, there it was again and a breath of air like a yawn. He rolled over, focused his vision with some difficulty and then: 

“Groot!?” The tiny tree had indeed yawned, stretching out its arms. 

“I am Groot,” the smaller, more high-pitched voice said, blinking large black eyes at him. 

“Yes!” Rocket gasped, sitting upright. His eyes pressed with tears, this time of joy. 

“I am Groot?”

“I’m not crying,” he said gently taking the pot in his paws. The baby Groot reached out to him, exploring his nose and face. Rocket felt waves of joy and relief breaking against his callous heart. “I thought I’d lost you buddy!” the baby Groot stared up at him. 

“It’s me! It’s Rocket!” He laughed through his tears as baby Groot continued playing with his fur. 

“I am Groot?” It ended. 

“…What do you mean…you don’t remember…?” Placing baby Groot back the stand Rocket reached for the last bottle of that liquor. Paws shaking as he opened it and guzzled it down but he was already drunk. It did nothing. Rocket drank until he could not drink anymore and when he was done he lifted baby Groot into his arms beside him on the bed. 

“I am Groot.” It squeaked. Rocket nodded, half delirious now, curling around the tiny pot.

Yes, we are friends….

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some of the dialogue for this chapter-the part with Drax talking about his tattoos and Rocket saying that he will speak of whatever he wants-was taken from a deleted scene in GoG 1. I do not own that dialogue and it belongs wholly to Marvel/the movie creators.


	5. Track Five: What's in a Name Part Two

“I am Groot!” 

“Yes!” Rocket exclaimed, quickly making sure there was no one else on board the Milano who might hear his parental like joy. They had stopped on ThreeFold a planet made up of three small planets connected by asteroid belts. Gamora had business there and the rest of the crew decided to check out the new territory. But as usual, Rocket professed to stay behind with baby Groot as they had come to calling him. “That’s right buddy, we DID break out of a prison together on Maldar!” Slowly but surely baby Groot had begun to recall certain memories of their misadventures together. Rocket was delighted each and every time. A piece of his best friend was still alive.

“I am Groot!” 

“That’s right, I am Rocket!” He said breathlessly full of hope. Had the memories of their time together come back? Baby Groot ran around the table again, reaching out his arms with their vines to knock over several dishes. The clattered to the ground smashing into bits. Rocket laughed wathing the small tree rush around and break everything he could wrap his vines around. 

“I am Groot, I am Groot, I am Groot!” The raccoon like creature smiled with unsurprised glee. Baby Groot remembered his name. He had many names before he became known as Rocket. The first name he had was something he could not quite recall. A combination of squeaks and sniffs that someone, he assumed his mother, would use to identify him from the other balls of fur around him, sisters and brothers? He never knew. He tried to remember the patterns of squeaks and sniffles, tried to remember his original name but like everything else before Halfworld, it was a muddled drunken haze. It was the name he hated the most that he had the longest.

“Subject 89P13,” he could still hear them saying it in those monotone voices of theirs as they scribbled on their note pads and examined him. “Subject 89P13 reacts to electrician. Subject 89P13 has yet to achieve language acquisition. Subject 89P13 responds to sensory deprivation.” It had not been until he met Groot that Rocket got his name. 

“I am Groot!” Rocket grabbed him just in time before he reached for Peter’s cassette deck. 

“Hey, big guy easy there,” he put the squirming Baby Groot onto his shoulders. “Do you remember when we got free from that looney asylum?” Rocket proceeded to retell one of his favorite and only pleasant memory of that place. The day they escaped. 

“I am Groot!” 

“Gimme a second!” 98P13 growled, scouring at the gun. No more ammo, and fifteen security guards ran towards them armed to the teeth. The heavy wind of the launching area whipped around them, stirring Groot’s branches and his fur. Had they not been in the middle of escaping, 89P13 would have reveled in the first fresh air he had felt in years. 

“I am Groot, I am Groot!”   
“I’M not doing anything!” He snarled, “It’s the flarking gun!” Above them sirens wailed, he could hear more ships coming above them. 89P13 smashed the gun to pieces, curing as he threw it aside and crawled up to Groot’s shoulders. From the vantage point he could see people armed with guns poking out of the building and those running towards them were closer. Groot waited for the last possible moment before roaring and lengthening his arms, striking out at the guards until all of them lay unconscious or, more likely dead. Shots echoed around them which 89P13 ducked from behind the floral colossus. Finally, they were able to fight their way backward, 

“That one!” 89P13 cried pointing at a two-person star flyer not five feet away. 

“I am Groot!” He nodded and they back peddled towards it, Groot using his arms to knock out anyone who came close on foot while 89P13 scrambled to pick up a gun from one of the fallen guards. Good, still loaded. He aimed at those up in the buildings with the guns taking them out with no discursion until Groot ducked to avoid hitting the swooping wing of the ship. 

“Great, let’s go!” 

“I am Groot!” 

“No! We don’t have time for…” the large tree looked at him with such innocents it touched something in 89P13. This place, it had messed him up real good. But not Groot. Somehow he was able to remain…pure. He had not let them tear out his heart. 

“Fiine…” 89P13 groaned. But stay here. I want this thing ready to go!” Groot nodded earnestly. 

“I am Groot!” 

“When am I not careful?” Without a reply 89P13 leveled his gun and took off, dashing past the few remaining panicked guards to the main power building. He pulled the trigger, blasting a hole in the wall and scurried through. The room was dark apart from the red flashes of the alarm. All wires and boxes with labels he could thankfully read. Outside more gun fire and screams. He ran around, desperately trying to find it until he spotted it against the far wall. “Containment,” hurrying, 89P13 flipped the switch, the green light on the box turned to off. More gun shots. Frantically he ran back, through the mess of wires, shooting a guard who ran at him as he tried to exit. Across the landing and launching bay the star flyer hovered, Groot waving as bullets ricochet off. He hoisted the gun onto his back, there was no time left. Animals one by one were coming out of the different buildings to the alarm of the guards. Rocket peered around, trying to find her. 

“Lylla?” He tried, but his voice was over shadowed by the fighting. “Lylla?!” He shouted, keeping one eye on the ship and one out for the small otter he had come to know. She had been in the cell across from him during their imprisonment and had already established a name for herself. She taught 89P13 which orderlies could be persuaded to give them extra food, which guards to watch out for and most importantly, effective methods of attacking the strange people in the strange goggles and coats.   
He had seen her take down four of them on two separate occasions, once she’d clawed out the eye of one of them. That was the only time 89P13 had seen their faces. Like him, Lylla had been experimented on for enhancement purposes and she would come back from who knew what groggy, bruised and broken like him. She never complained, she taught him not to complain. He knew that if she had gotten free she’d be the one leading the way but he hadn’t seen her in weeks. 

“Lyll-…ahh!” He fell forward. White hot pain going through his side. Staggering he made his wat to the ship, swaying as he gently secured himself in the cockpit beside Groot.

“I am Groot?” 

“No,” he grimaced. “I didn’t see her.” 

“I am Groot…” 

“Maybe.” 89P13 gripped the steering, with a roar and a hum they were off. 

“I am Groot!” Groot pointed out the window. 

“A rocket? Where?” 89P13 asked, but then he saw. Under the left wing. One look at it and he glanced back to the wreckage they had caused. The asylum burned and collapsed. Satisfaction and rage melded into one. It wasn’t enough. All of the animals were out of their cages by now, so taking aim, he punched the release button and off the rocket went. 

“So long motherfu****!” He watched as it soared off, landing on the building where he had been held. It erupted in an inferno as he laughed and they sped away with exhilaration. 

“I am Groot!” 

“Yeah that rocket was something!” he agreed, he watched the rear cams behind them as they went out of range. 

“…rocket…” he thought and found his grin widening.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In cannon, Lylla shows up in some of the earliest comics featuring Rocket Raccoon. She serves as his love interest in a way that I feel is extremely sexist. Early MCU and even today MCU is still not great with women and other female characters. I decided to instead make her a mentor to Rocket in his early days and maybe his friend but not a romantic interest. Personally, I don't ship Rocket with anyone romantically. Or Groot for that matter. Just my own take. Hope you still enjoy!


	6. Track Six: The Echo of Fire

The Kyln would be the 23 prison Rocket would break out of and the 18 that he and Groot had broken out of together. But now with Star-Boy and Gamora he was beginning to have his doubts that they could all make it out together. He and Groot would be fine, and Groot might be mad at him for a few days, but Rocket could handle that. Groot had been angry at him every time he promised to sober up, only to relapse a few weeks…forget it…days, later. Groot was kind and his torture had only made him more sympathetic. More compassionate.  
Rocket’s had the opposite effect and he had accepted that readily. No matter what happened he and Groot would get out and the rest of them well, best of luck. 

“You idiot!” He cried, dodging as prisoners in yellow jumpsuits brawled with each other and the guards tried without effort to establish some sort of order. “How am I supposed to fight these guys without my stuff!” Firing bullets sounded off and with a curse he crouched low, belly brushing Groot’s shoulder. Thankfully the flora colossus sprouted an array of thorns and small twigs out of his arm, shielding Rocket from the blast. The raccoon like creature tried to ignore the sounds of splintered bark and the tense of Groot’s muscles, mentally adding it to the rolodex of “times Groot has taken a hit or otherwise endangered, jeopardized, otherwise suffered harm for my sake.” The list was far longer than Rocket would have liked. 

“You! Creepy little beast!” He rolled his eyes, ears flattening. Looking up Rocket saw Drax standing over the bodies of several guards. Before he could conjure a snarky reply the destroyer tossed a gun. It arched through the air and Rocket sprung for it, keeping his hind paws…no…legs…on Groot’s shoulder. Stretching as far as he could his hands instantly caught it, bringing it to him. He clicked it back and felt the familiar sensation of adrenaline and power course through his arms. No one dared calling him vermin, or a rodent, scum when he was holding a class ten caliber Xandarian blaster to their heads. Rocket had been programmed to operate weapons of all sorts, but it was the fire power blast of the gun that he especially enjoyed. The first time he held a gun was during those tests in the labs. The first time he shot someone…that was different. No amount of programming or testing could prepare you for that. They had been testing him again, things stuck all over him while he paced around the room, the walls aligned with weapons. The strange people in the strange masks watched him from behind thick glass. He stared. Unsure of what to do until they shocked him. After the trembling and the pain, he ran over to the wall, his anger propelling him to pick up a large Kree made blaster He hefted it and shot, he jerked backward, ears awakening to the noise as it sent a rush through him. Instantly his mind knew what to do. He loaded the gun and aimed it at the glass. The bright kickback exhilarated him almost as much as the shocked cries from the scientists. Next he turned and blasted the door, running out and throwing the gun behind his back. Guards in armor swarmed him. He took aim down the hallway and fired. Everything bent into slow motion. There was a cry as one of the guards fell back. He watched them fall, saw the blood. For a millisecond, he hesitated and in that second they tore the weapon away from him, waves of electric pain vibrated through him as a heavy pressure slammed him to the ground. He was dragged away, but not before he saw her. Her helmet was, her hands trembled. There was dark red blood everywhere. He could see one eye, and the fear held within it, fear and despair. He gagged, and strained to see as they took him away. Put the helmet back on, he told himself. It was easier to think of the guards as guards. Not as actual living beings. Rocket could still see those eyes, could still smell the blood and sweat and fear.

Holding the gun that the strange alien threw to him, Rocket smiled. That rush running through him. He told himself it was worth it. “Oh yeah,” the rounds sounded off as Groot spun around. Rocket watched the Kyln guards fell with little ceremony. Deep down he wondered why all this was the way it was. Why he knew how to wield these weapons, was this all he was made for? There was a way to find out, or so he heard but first things first. It was time to get the flark out of here. With or without Star-Boy.


	7. Track Seven: Gideon's Bible

Rocket knew he was not the only one with less-than pleasant memories. In the evening hours he could hear Drax weep in his sleep for his wife and daughter. He could hear Peter humming or singing in his sleep, could see Groot’s tremors and twitches beside him. He didn’t hear Gamora. Ever, and her silence was the loudest. She was the only one besides himself who knew the pain of getting torn apart and reassembled, created to be controlled. She knew what it was like to be at the mercy of others, to have all autonomy stripped of you. She held it in her silence at night for long hours. Rocket knew it because he did the same thing. Had he been the sentimental sort, able to make connections with others, he would have dared knock on her door. He would have tried to talk to her. He shook his head. He was not like that. 

“I….am…Groot,” the high-pitched whine made Rocket’s ears perk up, gazing across the room. Baby Groot squirmed and clutched the small blanket Rocket had thrown over him earlier that evening. Rocket watched as the small tree whimpered and then settled. Shrugging he went back to work on his latest gun, an outfitted Xandarian rifle, with a few improvements of course. 

“I AM GROOT!” Baby Groot wailed, this time vines jutted out from his arms on all sides, grasping onto the pipes that ran across the ceiling. Flark! Rocket sprang upward, leaning over the small hammock. Baby Groot’s brow furrowed in his sleep, tears of sap ran down his small cheeks. “I am Groot,” he whispered, thrashing. His vines continued to grow, father then Rocket had seen since his tree friend had regrown. 

“Hey, hey buddy, it’s okay.” Rocket whispered, his whiskers bristled as he dodged another vine swooping over him. It attached to a beam on the ceiling and yanked downward sending the metal creaking. Tentatively he reached a hand outward, stroking Baby Groot awkwardly. He knew what was happening. Groot had these nightmares periodically, and Rocket had hoped that this new-ish Groot wouldn’t have to deal with them, wouldn’t have to remember. Rocket held his breath as he slowly picked him up as he squirmed. 

“Everything okay down there?” Peter called, Baby Groot cried out once more, three vines smashing around. Rocket watched as two of his guns were smashed to pieces. A flaring rage alit in him but he swallowed it, watching Baby Groot struggle. 

“I got it Quill!” Rocket hollard, he pulled the little Groot to his chest. He settled down on his bunk, sighing as he leaned against the wall. “Hey buddy, you’re alright. You ain’t on Halfworld anymore, we’re free.” Baby Groot sniffled, releasing some of his vines. Even now Rocket could kill them, all the scientists, the orderlies, everyone. The things they did to Groot. He could still hear the screams. Could still visualize the chains around his friend’s neck when they first brought him in. “That’s it,” Rocket said gently, concentrating on keeping his voice soft. Baby Groot curled up closer, tiny hands gripping at his blue jumpsuit. The vines slowly retracted. 

“I am Groot,” he whispered shaking his head. A pained expression lashed across his face, pricking Rocket in the chest with rage. 

 

“I know,” Rocket whispered. He wished he could stop the memories, wished he could make Groot forget the pain. Maybe he deserved it, but Groot didn’t. “…but you are safe here and I promise,” he took a deep breath, “I won’t let anyone hurt you.” Baby Groot opened his eyes, big and brown and dark and full of innocence. Full of hurt and of ghosts. The vines fully retracted and Baby Groot blinked. Rocket nodded, his paws gently stroking his belly. It was wrong, it was all so wrong. The shocks and the starving, the experiments, the lashings. How many times had Rocket heard the groans of pain, seen the electric shocks, every time Groot tried to speak those same three words they shocked or beat him. The—

something tiny and warm clutched Rocket’s finger. His stomach churned as he saw Baby Groot, his best friend once so large and looming, even when he had nightmares, now so tiny and small, gripped his finger for dear life. Rocket could feel that love trace upward, filling him. He sighed, and gently hung his head to nuzzle his cheek against the top of Baby Groot’s head. 

“I don’t know why they did it to us buddy,” he whispered. “I spent my entire life trying to figure it out.” Baby Groot opened his eyes once more, looking into Rocket like no one else could, seeing him. There was nothing in the galaxy that would heal him. Nothing that could make the pains in his back or his limbs less, nothing that would remove the horrors from his dreams, nothing to make him feel less lonely besides Groot. All his life he had fought and fought and hated and raged. Then he ran and ran and ran and was continuing to run. From the past, from himself and his loneliness, but there was one thing that could give him absolution, information. 

“I am Groot, I am Groot.” The tiny tree asked. In the dark of their quarters surrounded by the low thrum of the Milano Rocket knew the answer, at least he knew what Lylla had once told him. 

“I don’t have the answer to that buddy,” he whispered, gingerly curling his the rest of his fingers around Baby Groot’s hand. 

“But I think I may know something that might….”

“I am Groot?”

“…Gideon’s Bible” Rocket whispered.


	8. Track Eight: Unseen Cages

“The book of Halfworld!” Rocket growled, exasperated. The stood into the bay of the Milano some ten days and nine nearly sleepless nights later. Baby Groot had awoken from night terrors almost every hour from 10:00pm-4:00am and despite Rocket’s best efforts, all the hugging and holding and unsure words of attempted reassurance there was no resolve. 

“Halfworld?” Peter asked, his arms folded. Rocket saw the hesitation in his eyes. The last time they went to a planet, that planet turned out to be Peter’s psycho planet father. The time before that…Rocket stole batteries from the sovereign. 

“Halfworld? Is that your and Groot’s home planet?” Rocket’s fur bristled. Home. No. Never. He had no home. 

“No!” He snapped, “not home. Yeah I was born there, but it ain’t my home.” Drax’s brow furrowed in confusion. 

“So this book…” Gamora thankfully returned to the topic at hand. “…the book of Halfworld?”

“Also called Gideon’s Bible.” At this Peter pushed his back off the wall and stepped closer, instinctively Rocket crossed his arms. 

“I am Groot?” Baby Groot asked from his place on the table. 

“Something humies care about I guess,” Rocket shrugged and turned back to face them. “It ain’t a bible. I don’t know exactly what it is…”

“You don’t even know what it is?” Peter accused. Flarking idiot! Rocket raged, feeling his frustration rise in his chest. The same rage he felt after stealing the batteries. He could still remember taking them too. Yondu spoke true when he said that Rocket stole batteries he didn’t need. He didn’t need them. He needed what they symbolized. He needed the feeling that they gave in the act of taking them. Rocket stole the batteries for the same reasons, (or so he suspected) that Yondu stole Peter as a child. Because he desperately needed to fill something inside of himself, because he needed to prove to himself and those around him that he could. Quelling his anger he looked at them and sighed. For Groot, he thought. 

“The scientists on Halfworld—they wrote everything down in Gideon’s Bible. What they were working on I guess.”

“You guess?” Peter asked skeptically. 

“Lylla saw it once, she told me she knew for a fact that…” he held his breath seeing all of them raise their brows. Manti’s antennae rose in interest. 

“Who is this Lylla?” Drax asked. 

“I am Groot!”  
“It’s not important!” Rocket snapped, his fists clenching. All that matters is we get that book. I ain’t asking for myself…I’m asking for Groot.” Even as he said it he knew it was a lie. How many years had he spent in that cage? How many straps had they gone through to hold him down? How many times had he lay passively helpless despite his best efforts as they tore him up. How many inmates had he guarded when he wasn’t being “enhanced?” Hundreds probably. Hundreds of crazies who had hurled their own share of abuse at him. They too were kept in cages. 

“This Lylla, you have not spoken of her before. Is she your wife?” 

“No you idiot! She…she was on Halfworld with me. Was captain of the guard responsible for keeping the crazies from getting out of hand. She was torn apart like me too.” His voice drifted off. 

“I am Groot,” the small tree said, stepping off the table to take his familiar spot on Rocket’s shoulder. 

“If we can get that book, find out why and exactly what they did to Groot, he…he’d appreciate it.” Silence surrounded them all with apprehension. He could see Gamora calculating the risk before she spoke. 

“Very well.” 

“What?” Peter unfolded his arms in disbelief,

“Enough Peter!” She silenced him with a look. “After all Groot has done for us, this is the least we can do.” She looked at the flora colossus for a minute. “Or do I have to remind you all of Groot’s…sacrifice?” Rocket flinched. 

“I agree.” Drax put in. Nebula nodded. 

“Its decided then,” Peter said, his tone since softening. “Rocket do you know how to get there?” Swallowing the lump in his stomach Rocket nodded, motioning for Peter to follow him to the flight deck. Walking through the Milano his mind raced. Back to Halfworld. The one place in the whole flarken galaxy he swore he would never return to. What if it was still in operation? What if they recaptured him? Images raced through his mind faster than he could comprehend. But if they did make it, if this book were actually real…he would finally know. He would have the answer, to all his pain, to his misery. Maybe it would contain information on others like him. If there was any hope in that, it was in Gideon’s Bible. Rocket plugged in the coordinates and looked out over the cockpit. The stars were beautiful; at least in this cage, he could still see the wide infinite space. In this cage he kept himself in, the one made of unseen bars of anger and fear he could pretend he was free. Rocket had broken out of 24 prisons in his lifetime but there was one he knew he would never be of. The one he created himself. Gideon’s Bible could either liberate him from that prison or, he feared most, it would lock him in for good.


	9. Track Nine: Sticks and Stones

Nursing a bad hangover from the late night in some Flannan bar, Rocket tinkered with his weapons lethargically. Five days, two quadrants, almost half way to Halfworld. Despite Baby Groot’s protests Rocket had drank himself listless each and every night since they had started off. Too many memories swarmed around him, too many imagined scenarios replayed in his mind. Was Gideon’s Bible even real? What if it told horrors beyond his imagination? What if his earliest, most precious memories of the warmth of his mother, the sunlight and sqeaks and sounds, what if all of it was fake? He drove the screw driver into the socket with far more force then necessary. At least Baby Groot’s sleep had improved a little. He only woke up six times last night and only four of those times was he crying. Rocket had hardly slept since they had decided to go to Halfworld but it wasn’t all bad. He fixed some repairs he’d been meaning to do on the Milano, he reprogrammed some of his weapons and now he was just finishing up. He glanced at Baby Groot who was now asleep himself, his own vines creating a little hammock for him beside Rocket’s own bed. 

“Groot?” 89P13 whispered, crawling over to the bars of his cage and peered out. He could hear the heavy footfalls of the Flora Colossus. 

“Get in there,” one of the guards snarled. The raccoon like creature watched as they shoved the large tree into his cell. 

“Do you think it’ll survive?” 

“Pshh, doubt it.” Rocket waited until their foot-falls shuffled off. Walking down the long hallway and shutting the door as they went. Only when they were out of range did Rocket dare move, shuffling over the right side of his cage and cocked his head trying to survey the damage. His stomach writhed with worry. Groot’s legs and right arm had been taken off. Not sliced or even snapped or blasted apart but…burned. It was easy enough for him to heal himself if he were splintered apart but the fire damaged his rejuvenating cells and cambium tissue. Over his torso were deep carvings of symbols, just doodles really. Inappropriate slurs and nonsense doodles. Groot moaned, shaking his head and Rocket watched in fearful hope as his breath rose and fell. 

“C’mon buddy, it’s alright…”Groot coughed, sap flew from his mouth. The flora colossus gasped, rolling to his side to face Rocket, more sap fell from his wounds. Rocket reached through the bars of his cage, fumbling for the large tree’s remaining hand.

“Hey buddy, it’s alright,” he whispered, his deft finger’s finding Groot’s and closing around them. “it’s alright.” They sat in somber silence, the creature that would become Rocket tried not to look at his friend’s wounds. Yes he too had suffered, he too constantly ached. But at least he had some sort of job too. At least he was also put in charge of guarding the “patients” when he was not being tortured. That was not the case for Groot. All his tree friend had was pain and waiting to be in more pain. The carvings on his body moved with each rattled breath. Groot’s soulful eyes were pinched shut in pain. He moaned and Rocket could only tighten his grip on his hand. 

“….You weren’t born here were you pal?” He asked in an attempt to distract him from the shivering agony. 

“I…I am Groot…” the flora colossus whispered. Rocket lowered himself to the ground on his belly, watching that wooden face as it tried to smile. 

“Planet X? I never heard of it,” he said. “What’s it like? Can you remember?” Groot nodded and told him, with as much strength has he could muster of the wonders of his glorious world before he had been captured. Planet X had been a lush place much like Rocket’s own earliest memories. A place full of growing things, of springs and rivers and flowers. A place with no humies, no laboratories or needles. 

“I am Groot…I am Groot, I am Groot.” He continued telling Rocket of his homeworld. Rocket listened, stroking the wooden palm of Groot’s hand. He weaved a tapestry with his words, of endless trees and uninterrupted wilderness. In his mind subject 89P13 conjured images and smells of a world outside the asylum. 

“I am Groot,” he said sleepily. The raccoon like creature nodded, watching as Groot’s face slowly relaxed into sleep.

“Sounds beautiful buddy. If we ever get off this dump, that’ll be the first place we go to.” He had promised and indeed they had made to go there but there was nothing left. It was exactly what Groot had feared and Rocket had watched as his best friend stood with wanton silence, mourning a life robbed from him. 

“Rocket,” he jumped. Gamora stood behind him, her expression unreadable as usual. He turned to face her, gun in hands. “How are you?” 

“Why’d you care? She signed, rolling her eyes and turned away. Rocket sighed, wishing his first instinct wasn’t to turn people away. Despite Yondu’s accurate assessment, the habit had continued. 

“I know what it is like,” she said softly. “To have all bodily autonomy taken from you. To be torn apart…when Thanos modified me….” She stopped. “I know what it’s like and…you are willing to go back there, for Groot. It is brave and selfless.”

“Yeah whatever.”

“I don’t think I would have the courage to go back to where Thanos trained me. Not for anyone.” He sighed as her foot falls faded away. 

“Gamora!” She turned in the doorway, 

“Thanks.” Nodding with finality she made her way down the hall and off to her quarters. If only she were right. But he wasn’t doing it just for Groot, he was doing it for himself, for Lylla, even for the mental patients who were treated just as cruelly.  
He had searched for Gideon’s Bible after they left the remnants of Planet X, only to give up after there were no leads. But it was always in the back of his mind and whenever they had down time after bringing in a bounty he thought about it. Rocket, and thus Groot, had traveled to all quadrents of the galaxy to search for it when Rocket heard anything to do with Halfworld or saw anything that reminded him of it. The spark to search for it had ignited more then once after their initial give up, and he had killed for it. He’d killed for answers, had risked his life. Had risked Groot’s. But now he had a team.. he had, dare he say it, a family behind him. Letting Gamora’s words fill some of the emptiness, he abandoned his work and made his way to check on the Milano’s progress.


	10. Track Ten: Sharing a Drink Called Loneliness Is Better Than Drinking Alone

Rocket!” Drax’s voice echoed down the halls of the Milano. The small mammal groaned and rubbed his eyes awake, beside him Baby Groot clung to his fur. He was old enough to be out of his pot now, but still young enough to crave closeness. Groot had only had two nightmares tonight, one of which resulted in a vine being wrapped dangerously tight around Rocket’s tail. Rocket had drifted in and out of cat-naps only to wake for good when the pain in his tail roused him. It had taken almost a half hour for him to soothe Baby Groot into releasing him.

“What the flark do you want?” He hissed. Drax’s tattooed head poked into their quarters. 

“Peter wants to me tell you that we will be on Halfworld soon.”

“How soon?” Drax thought for a moment. “A few hours.” Allow me to rephrase that, he thought, how much time do I have to get as hammered as possible? 

“I am Groot,” Baby Groot said sleepily. 

“You woke the kid!” Rocket vehemently said through his teeth. Drax frowned.

“Groot is not is a kid. Groot is a small twig.” Rocket rolled his eyes. 

“Whatever.” Drax shrugged and retreated. The enhanced creature goes back to his friend, 

“We’ll be there soon buddy. You better get your rest.” His hands automatically begin stroking his friend’s bark. 

“I am Groot,” he smiles. 

“Nah’ I’ll be alright.” Baby Groot continues to stare at him and for a moment Rocket can see a glimpse of the old Groot’s light. His wisdom and care. Groot always worried about him. Eventually he settled the tiny flora colossus down enough that he lay down again, fingers curling into Rocket’s fur. His eyes were still open but it was better than nothing. He sighed, his belly doing flops. Anxiously he glanced at his guns. How many would he be able to bring with him? Rocket pushed the images of doctors and scientists away. He forced himself to think of nothing. It was nice, sitting here with Baby Groot as the rest of the ship went about its business.   
It was lonely, sure. But it was the kind of loneliness Rocket liked. Rocket had perfected the art of loneliness the way most people perfected saying ‘I’m fine,’ when everything was going wrong. Sure Groot was always with him, so most people assumed he wasn’t lonely and they were partially right. Groot’s constant presence was welcome but there was a deeper loneliness. 

“Ain’t no thing like me, except me!” he proclaimed whenever people made remarks about his appearance or what he was, which was often. It was true. There was nothing like him. Nothing. Sure the same could be said for Groot, since he was the last of his kind, but at least there had been things like him. He had a home planet that had been destroyed but it was there, in memory and heart. He had an identity beyond Halfworld. Rocket did not. Rocket only had what he had made himself. That was one of the reasons why he and Groot had gravitated towards each other and had gotten even closer since joining the Guardians. They were the most different, the most removed. Drax, Peter, Gamora, they all resembled humies. Even Mantis with her antennae was humanoid to a certain degree, as was Nebula. But Rocket and Groot would always be starred at. Rocket had allowed this thought to consume him for many years even when he and Groot were searching for bounties together. No one knew what he was, including himself, not truly. He only knew he was alone. Gently rising from where Baby Groot lay he reached under his cabinet of weapons and pulled out a backup liquor bottle. Downing it in five easy gulps he allowed his mind to drift back to Halfworld. If there was the slightest possibility that he wasn’t in face the only thing of his kind, it would be found on Halfworld in Gideon’s Bible. Maybe. Just Maybe. He knealt down on the floor and began to fix one of his largest weapons. It needed to be in perfect shape for whatever they met on Halfworld.

“Rocket!” Peter’s voice cut through his reflection a little while later. Rocket made his way up to the pilot deck, Baby Groot on his shoulder. “We’re almost there,” he said with more concern then Rocket thought possible. “I’m sorry I was skeptical,” he continued. 

“Whatever. I just want to get the thing and get out.” Peter nodded. Rocket stared out at the emptiness of space. Stars were scarce out here, there was a reason Halfworld Laboratory and Asylum had been located so far out. 

“So I got to ask,” Peter said, “besides Groot and whoever Lylla is do you have anyone else on Halfworld? Friends, a family? Were there other animals…things…” Rocket listened to him stumble through the words with equal parts amusement and sadness. “…aliens like you?” 

“….Not many. I mean, we were kept in our cages when we weren’t watching the patients. But Wal Rus was…another subject who went on patrol with me. Him and…” Rocket paused. “Blackjack O’Hare.” He heard Peter stifle a snicker but ignored it. It wasn’t worth it. But he knew that Blackjack was no joke. Once a fellow guard, Blackjack had a rather brutal means of handling the patients. Rocket had witnessed him abuse the mental patients the way the strange people in the strange coats abused him. The day Blackjack killed a patient was the day Rocket reported him and they had done terrible things to him in retribution, including removing the rabbit like creature’s eyes from his skull. From then on Blackjack had remained one of Rocket’s largest tormentors on Halfworld. 

Many times Rocket wondered if he deserved it or not for what he did. He had betrayed the unspoken trust of all of the subjects. But the mental patient Blackjack repeatedly beat and humiliated was young, small and defenseless. Exactly how Rocket himself had been.

“We’ll be there soon,” Peter said, leaning down under his pilot’s seat and reemerging with a bottle of clear liquid. He wordlessly took a sip and handed it to Rocket who drank a few gulps. “I picked this song up back on Terra the last time I was there,” Peter said after a few more passes back and forth. Rocket listened to the gentle thrum of the instrument Peter called a piano. He hummed along, it was pleasant. He glanced at Baby Groot on his shoulder and handed the bottle back to Quill. On the horizon, the muddled green-brown sliver of Halfworld taunted him. 

“Let’s do this then,” he whispered. More to himself than anyone else.


	11. Track Eleven: The Things We Forget

“You ain’t coming and that’s final!” 

“I AM GROOT!” The tiny tree screamed, his vines curling in frustration. Rocket would have picked anytime, any place, to have an argument with Groot, anytime, any place besides right here. Right as he was about to disembark the Milano, right here as everyone was gathered around him, their pointed gazes causing his already frayed nerves to split.

“Because it ain’t safe!” 

“I am Groot!” Those large brown eyes burrowed into Rocket’s anger.

“Well that’s why I’m packing extra!” He roared, gesturing all around him to the various guns, ammunition cases, bombs and three grenades he had strapped to himself.

“I am Groot! I am Groot! I am Grooot!” Baby Groot’s voice reached a nearly deafening crescendo before it cracked and tiny tears of sap formed from the corner of his eyes. 

“Because I can’t lose you again!!” The shaking truth was out of Rocket’s mouth before he could stop it. 

“Aww.” Peter cooed. 

“Shut up!” Rocket snapped, brining his attention back to Baby Groot. He settled himself on his knees and put a hand on the small flora colossus. 

“I have to do this buddy,” he said as gently as he could. “For both of us. Stay here and I’ll be back.” He picked up Baby Groot, his heart nearly cracking as his best friend turned child gripped his fur tightly, burying his face in Rocket’s shoulder. He glared at the rest of them and their sentimental silence. Mantis stepped forward, reaching out, Rocket swiftly put Baby Groot in her arms and…

You are scared…Mantis’s voice spoke to him in some strange manner. Was it in his head? He didn’t know. You are scared that you have come all this way and that you will not find it. It makes you want to weep, the possibility that there is no reason. The raccoon like creature went stiff, that there was no reason for your pain. No greater plan, no motive besides boredom. You are afraid that all your suffering was for nothing. But that is nothing compared to the fear that they may trap you again…that…with a few choice curses he wrenched himself away, growling so that he could not hear Baby Groot’s tiny whines. 

“Last call flarknuts,” he said over his shoulder as the ramp was let down. “I told yah I don’t need you to come.”

“We’re coming with you Rocket.” Peter said, strapping his gun to his hip. Rocket rolled his eyes, took a deep breath and almost recoiled as the dry clumpy yellow soil of Halfworld hit his foot.

Abandoned. Or so it seemed. Rocket held his gun at the ready, taking his eyes away from the specs only to glance around between the encroaching vegetation. Decrepit buildings stood in the distance and while he could see nor hear any inhabitance, the stench of blood, feces, urine and chemicals still hung in the air. 

“Wow Rocket,” Peter said all too lightly. Your homeworld isn’t that bad!”

“It’s not my home!” Rocket snarled, pushing back all the memories. Some of which he had entirely forgotten. He’d forgotten that Halfworld had anything outside the laboratories and the cells for the patients. He was rarely allowed outside. He had forgotten that anything could exist here besides pain and shadows. Every building they entered was the same. Broken equipment, stains on the walls, roofs falling in, vines and flowers struggling to grow between the concreate. Groot would appreciate that. 

“I know this smell,” Drax whispered as they turned down another dark hallway. Rocket scanned the area with his latest vision goggles. No trace of thermos-radiation at all. “It is the smell of dead bodies. Angry creature, did you kill all of these people?” 

“Wish I had,” Rocket managed through his fear. But no, most of the guards and scientists had actually been killed by mental patients or the subjects after he had flipped the switch and freed them. 

“Do you have any idea where it may be?” Gamora asked several hours later. They had gone around perimeter three times already and inside every stinking, dark building. Almost every builing. But they were now in Building #73H9. The building that sent torrents of memories of agony back into his heart. It was where he was…manufactured. 

I know you play like you’re the meanest, Yondu’s voice echoed in his ears as they crossed the threshold into the wide-open lobby area now dark with broken windows. No longer the white sanitary impersonal place it once had been. 

“Rocket,” Gamora’s voice jolted him and he rounded on them, gun aimed.   
“Hey! Ranger Rick calm down!” Peter said, arms flying up defensively. 

“You should not be so loud. Your loud voices are scaring him.” Drax said matter-of-factly. It continued to stun Rocket that out of all of them, the least socially inclined, socially awkward brute possessed the most emotional intelligence of all of them. Besides Mantis perhaps.

“I apologize, it was just that…” Gamora cut her words and stared straight ahead. Rocket didn’t have the courage to come up with some snarky reply. Instead he turned, gun still aimed and…

A small dark brown, white and black creature stood before them, it’s large eyes expectant. 

Hope. Hope alit in Rocket’s chest, something he had forgotten. Was it possible? No. It couldn’t be. An audible gasp came from Rocket as the creature spoke. 

“Who are you?” the hope stirred within him. 

You push away anyone who’s willing to put up with you because just a little bit of love reminds of how big and empty that hole inside you actually is. That hole that Rocket had filled with hate, alcohol, explosives and defensiveness. Never to be filled, until now…? 

“I’m….” Rocket faltered, his gun dropping. “I’m Rocket…” The creatures nodded. 

“I heard rumors about you,” it said. “I had hoped you would come. I thought I was all alone in the universe.”

“….me too.” Rocket whispered. 

“Rocket,” Peter said hesitantly, “Rocket I don’t think that’s….”

“Shut up!” 

“If you come with me, I know what you’re looking for!” The other strange creature said happily.   
“Gideon’s Bible! It’s here! I’ve read it, come I’ll show you!” Without hesitation Rocket darted after the creature, down the shadowy halls but now his mind was not filled with terror, now there was hope. There was someone else like him in the world after all. He wasn’t alone. That was why he ignored Star-Dork, Gamora and Drax who ran after him, shouting at hime to stop. 

Rocket stopped as he entered the last room at the end of the all. Rubble and broken equipment lay scattered. An over turned medical table and vials of liquid spilled out on the floor. 

“Rocket! Listen to me!” Peter begged, “I know this isn’t what you want to hear but I don’t think that’s a…”

“Subject 89P13,” Rocket’s ears flicked backward as he looked around for the creature who had ran ahead of him. At the sound of that name…no…term, he stared straight ahead. 

The creature that resembled him smiled, a cruel and twisted smile that made Rocket’s hackles rise. 

“Subject 89P13,” it repeated. The creature, the one creature who was like him in the entire galaxy laughed. “I’m sorry, it’s just…it’s too funny that look on your face.” No one moved. Rocket’s hyperactive mind whirles between confusion, fear and hope. “It’s just very cliché isn’t it rat? A tortured soul, trying to do the right thing.” The creature shook it’s head. “You really thought you, a test subject could be anything more than that? Your screams were always amusing to me but this,” he gestured to where Gamora, Drax and Peter stood behind Rocket. “This is truly something else.” 

“I…I don’t understand,” Rocket whispered. 

“You will soon enough,” the animal reached behind itself, drawing forth an unassuming book. Jacketed in silver faded metal, nearly as thick and three bricks. An alien language read across the top but Rocket didn’t need to read it to know what it was. Oddly enough the giddy sensation of anticipation he was expecting never came. Instead Rocket felt bile quiver in his stomach. “I’ve already read it. It’s quite entertaining. It contains all sorts of information about this place.” Rocket only stared as the fellow lab animal hoisted the book on its hip and walked closer. “You thought you could have a family. You thought you could forget all this? I know you try to forget.” 

I know them scientists what made you didn’t care a rats ass about you.. Yondu’s words echoed in Rocket’s mind. The creature was inches from him now but Rocket couldn’t bare to follow its gaze at it circled him. “Do you want to know the answer to your question? The one question that haunts your every step?” 

“Rocket…” Peter’s whisper of conscern was a ghost to him as the raccoon like creature felt the emptiness inside him swell up, threatening to break him. He was frozen. Guns, grenades all around him, the rest of the guardians crew behind him and he could do nothing but stand in empty dread. “I know the answer to that awful question: am I all alone?” Rocket didn’t even flinch as the creature picked up his ear and whispered with a tongue of oil: 

“Oh yes, you are very much alone.”

“Wh…what?” Rocket turned as it stepped away pressing something on its back and watched in anguished fear as the fur, ears, tale and red-brown eyes melted away. Beneath it was a creature very unlike himself. 

Blackjack O’Hare, it barely registered in his befuddled mind. He felt himself tremble.

“Flarkface!” Peter’s voice shouted somewhere far away. Mumbles. Sounds, smells, blood, viscera, chemicals, emptiness. Nothing like him except him. Nothing at all. Whatever small shrouded heart Rocket had, it cracked. 

“Don’t worry you can still have your book,” Blackjack thrust it at Rocket who took it without repute. “I have all I want. That is what you deserve for what you did to me. You’re no better than them Subject 89P13. You let them torture me. You are just as bad as them.” The anthropomorphic rabbit pointed two long fingers at his empty eye sockets. “You did this to me, you and them.” Run. Rocket’s mind was beyond logic. Anything to get away. He had been on this damn planet far too long and now all of it was swirling around him like a cyclone of all the things he had kept repressed. Gamora had a hand on his shoulder and he turned his back to the rabbit, eyes searching for an exit. His finger curling around the book. Some small part of his mind that remained in-tact whispered that he’ go after Blackjack, first thing. After he read Gideon’s Bible.

“Subject 89P13, I want you to know one last thing.” Rocket stopped in the door way, turning his head over his shoulder. Blackjack smiled, “no matter what happens…no matter what words of comfort they pretend to give you. You will die alone…or not die. Death is for living things. But you were made, manufactured. You will expire alone and terrified the same way you have functioned.” Death is for living things. But you were…manufactured….the thought pierced him with truth, a truth he had always known but had chosen to try to forget. Before he could turn or reach for his own gun, something loud sounded off and an excruciating jolt burst forth. He took an involuntary breath in and his eyes blinked rapidly. 

“ROCKET!” Voices. Electricity. His arm jerked painfully and he watched as dark blood came through his armor. His cybernetics…the panel on his back, it sparked. Rocket stumbled forward, but fell backward, clutching the book to his chest. He coughed, and fell forward into someone’s arms. The last thing he saw was the ceiling of the long hallway. He was going back. He could see them, those masked faces with their strange gloves. He was being taken apart and something in the depths of his chaotic mind had a feeling he would never be put back together.


	12. Track Twelve: A Little Darkness

Rocket’s life was defined by darkness. The first darkness was one he had forgotten. The darkness of earth and warmth and safety. Of other living beings pressed closed together, their furry bodies tangled up together. Then it was the darkness of his first cage. Tiny narrow with no windows. Of course he tried to forget the darkness of his half-conscious state when the strange people in the strange masks experimented on him. That darkness drifted like shadows, all variant shades of black and other dark colors his mind came up with. Impenetrable, except for the pain. Pain penetrated everything. Then there was the darkness in his own heart that nearly cut him off from all other senses. Wrapping him in a black cocoon of what he told himself was protection. It was really isolation. Of course, he could also never forget the darkness of calm. The darkness that came when he curled up on Groot’s chest after a nightmare, or beside him in his bunk. The darkness that was silent but for Groot’s slow “I am Groot’s,” comforting and familiar. That dark was restful and serene, secure. Born of the balance between his best friend’s little lights and the black between them. Rocket was the darkness to Groot’s light. He was not proud of that. But he accepted it. 

Right now he is mildly aware of the people rushing back to wherever they had come from. But he is mostly aware of the pain. His body twitches, his eyes are rolled back and every few moments he can hear the screech of that panel in his back, the rods in his collar bones, all arguing with another in terrible spasms. He spots one of the people, is her name Gamora? She has something in her hands, a book? Yes, Gideon’s Bible. That’s what he was doing right before he thought he’d found someone like him. But that was a lie. Blackjack’s face taunted him every time he closed his eyes. He’d been played the fool. He’d come so close and he had the book so it was not a total loss was it? This moment of clarity is ended by a stabbing shock in his leg and he sees the hardware beneath his torn skin, blood and tissue. His eyes close again, his mind and body delve back down into the waters of swirling anguish. 

“Do not fear,” a booming voice commands from above. “Do not fear. We will try to get you back to the ship and try to heal you. Though that is not likely. Your injuries are…” someone cuts him off. Rocket only screams. He tries to arch backward, to rid himself of these metal implants but hands catch him. 

“No Rocket, don’t. It’s okay, we’re leaving now.” His eyes open a sliver as he takes in the vegetation, the ferns, and vines that have now consumed the compound. He thinks of Lylla, what if she somehow remained? What if she was here? He forgets Lylla. His mind forgets Lylla. His heart does not. Rocket has only ever cared about three things in his life. They are, in no particular order:

1\. Finding Gideon’s Bible  
2\. Lylla  
3\. Groot

Out of these three things, only one is paramount. Gideon’s Bible had been found more or less. Lylla is either dead or living a better life than Rocket is, or so he hopes. So one thing remained: Groot. The jolting pain of his cybernetics begins to wane, replaced by a different, aching dull pain. He feels listless and numb and cannot control his movements. The voices around him slow down, everything smells strange. His limbs are heavy. Something liquid stains his hands and his clothes. Hands press down against his body, them. He tries to fight them off but it is useless. Whatever substance they injected into him this time is truly strange. He falls in and out of awareness. 

“Rocket….stay with us, we’re almost there.” But his mind swims and the words have no meaning. Is this what dying is? He wonders, moaning as the pain comes up in another wave of stinging, followed by hot dull prods all along his body. He watches his tail move without his control. His arms spasms again. No, he couldn’t be dying. Blackjack had been right. Death was for things that had lived, had been born. Subject 89P13 had been created, he had functioned and now he would expire. Rocket, Subject 89P13? He isn’t sure anymore, wonders this as he feels himself fall. Above him a green figure looks worried, what is her name?

Gamora. Rocket knows that name and he reaches out to her, savoring the fact that he can control his right hand at the moment. 

“Gamora,” he tries to speak but his own voice sounds far away. Another sting of pain comes up from his feet and crushes his chest. He can hear the electric shock of the panels in his back spark and he cringes. Something takes his hand tightly, but not dangerously.   
“I’m here Rocket. We’re all here, we are going into the Milano now.” But he doesn’t realize that Peter is carrying him up the ramp. Doesn’t even see Nebula or Mantis rush in. 

“If this….if I don’t…just take care of Groot okay?” 

“You’ll take care of him yours…”

“No!” Rocket snarls’ as he is laid down on a bed and hands fumble over him. The green hand tries to break away but he clutches on. The darkness comes in and out now, surrounding him. This is a new type of darkness he has never experienced. “Just…take care of him. He needs still needs sunlight…but not too much or he’ll dry out.” Rocket can feel bandages being pressed on him. Is he still in the lab on Halfworld? He doesn’t know. His ears fill with the roar of engines. He knows that sound well but he cannot appreciate it. “If he has nightmares, rub his back. Not between the shoulders though, down lower like the middle of his back. Get him to talk, it distracts him…and violets are his favorite flowers to grow.” Gamora nods, her lips in a thin line. The darkness comes again, this time pressing on all corners of him. He tries to fight it but he is so tired. 

“I am Groot!! I am Groot!!!” 

“Someone get him out of here!” Something grips Rocket. It is like wood and vine and pulls him from the depths of his delirium. It cries out. 

“We are doing all we can,” comes the booming voice. “Small plant, you must let us work on Rocket or else he will die. You cannot be here.” 

“I……AM…GROOT!!!” The black shadows close in around him. Rocket does not know what is happening, his body is betraying him. It bucks and thrashes and scratches and short-circuits painfully. He wonders if this is how Groot felt when he sacrificed himself. Probably not. Groot had peace that his friends would be protected. He had that peace of mind as he always had. Still, Rocket wonders how Groot felt. What had happened to him between the explosion and waking again in his pot. He would ask Groot, but he was too small for that conversation. Too young. Where is Groot? Rocket tries to find him, but the dark has closed his eyes. 

“We’re losing him! Mantis?”

“I have tried! But he is in too deep a sleep! I cannot sense any emotions for me to calm him!”

“How is that possible?!” 

“I AM GROOT I AM GROOT, I AMMM GROOT!”

“SOMEONE GET GROOT OUT OF HERE!”  
“No, let him stay. When my wife and child were killed, I was not there. It tortures me to this day. Let him stay.”

“Rocket is not going to die!” 

“….Peter…”

“He’s not! Come on, I need more bandages. Kraglin! What are you doing?”

“I’m rewiring captain, help me flip him over. If we can repair the panel and the wiring we can stabilize him and get to work on his wounds.” 

Rocket tries to push past the darkness but it is useless. He falls away from the pain, he retreats deep into himself. He swims through an ocean of dark waves, he cannot feel his own body. He smiles. He’s broken free from his prison. That makes 24. 

There is a light somewhere in the night. It is small. It glows yellow. It makes him smile. He reaches for it first with his arm, then with his eyes. He blinks slowly and the lights multiply, startling and golden. Groot. The darkness beckons when he closes his eyes again but it comes back, that light. 

“G…Groot?” 

“He’s awake!” 

“Shh, not so loud.” 

More vines wrap around him. Rocket feels them against his bandages. His eyes open but he is still in darkness. It is peppered with light but he cannot tell where he is. 

“Groot…is this…am I dead?” It is hard for him to speak. His voice is dry and thin. 

“We thought you were for a second there.” Rocket cannot nod without feeling sick. He opens his eyes for a moment longer and sees Groot’s spores dancing around him, the tiny tree has vines and branches wrapped all around his fur, the large eyes gazing up at him with sap tears trickling. 

“I…I am..G..Groot,” 

“Now you know how I felt,” Rocket says with more bitterness in his tone then he meant to. The darkness subsides a little as he feels Groot hug him. Tiny body pressed into his fury chest. He winces in pain but doesn’t move. 

“I am Groot, I am Groot,” the small tree continues to whisper. Rocket smiles and gently touches the top of Baby Groot’s head, he leans down, ignoring the ache in his back and chest. 

“I love you too buddy.”   
“I am Groot?”

“Yeah,” Rocket says softly, watching the little lights which emanate from Baby Groot’s branches. “I promise never to leave you, if you promise never to leave me either.” 

“I am Groot.” The little lights dance in the darkness of their room and Rocket slides back into sleep. This time it is the gently darkness of comfort. 

It takes Rocket 34 days to fully recover from the three blaster wounds. The first and most serious that went through his cybernetic panel in his back takes the longest to heal. The two other blaster wounds, one through his hip and the other through his tail are painful but they heal faster. It only takes Rocket 5 days to ask about Gideon’s Bible. Gamora gives it to him without ceremony and he waits for her to leave before he and Groot open it. 

“Read it to me bud,” reading things, concentrating on something for long periods of time is still hard for him. The damage to his hardware effected his nervous system and brain. Groot nods and opens the book. Rocket waits, holding his breath. 

“I am Groot,” the flora colossus reads slowly. “I am Groot….I am Groot.” He reads throughout the night, with Rocket taking a turn for has long as he can manage. Rocket briefly wonders if Groot is too little to be reading this but he shrugs it off. Rocket did not sugar coat anything. Groot deserved better than that. It takes them 15 days to read the entire book. Rocket has nightmares for 15 days afterward. He searches for Lylla’s name but the only mention of her is in regards to things he already knows. She had also been a subject, made captain of the guards who watched over the asylum. He reads formulas, looks at the illustrations. Thanos, Infinity Stones, Avengers Initiative, S.H.I.E.L.D, Terra (earth), disposable army. Mental patients to be trained as disposable army. Guards and Subjects to direct them but no less disposable. A new world after Thanos is defeated. Groot reads the inventory of subjects. 

89P13-Raccoon born in the wild-Halfworld

89P14-Otter born in captivity-Terra

89P15-Flora Colossus born in the wild-Planet X

89P27-Hare born in captivity-Halfworld Laboratory 

“Born in the wild,” Rocket whispers and he looks at Groot who smiles in his lap. He was not made. Not exactly. Modified yes, but he was born, born something other than what he was turned into on Halfworld. He does not care that it says raccoon, though he will never let the others know that. He had been a subject yes, but not always. 

“I am Groot!” The tree said happily. Rocket grinned through a jolt of pain from his healing wounds and pulled his friend closer as Baby Groot yawned and closed his eyes against him. He closed the book. Rocket’s life was defined by darkness and light. Until now. Now it would be defined by none other but himself.

**Author's Note:**

> The title "Gideon's Bible" is referenced in the same Beatles song "Rocky Raccoon" that inspired the character's name. "Rocky Raccoon checked into his room, Only to find Gideon's Bible, Rocky had come, equipped with a gun, To shoot off the legs of his rival, His rival it seems, had broken his dreams." Comments are greatly appreciated!


End file.
